As social media has risen to the heights of the zeitgeist, so has the Twitter Hashtag has become a serious part of the everyday writing experience. The 140 character limit, born of an SMS world that no longer exists, combined with the rise of 'tagging' as information demarcation and ontology has led to a digitally-driven reappraisal of one of the profundities of language. How we use nouns. Back in the day, in say 2006 and before, there were three kinds of nouns, proper nouns, regular nouns, and pronouns. To that we can now add a fourth, hashtag generated version of the noun.

The post-hoc noun.

We all know how it works. We want to make sure everyone online knows what we're talking about, and we'd rather avoid the tedium of building a full sentence around our subject, so we write the sentence with a pronoun as subject and add the noun itself as a hashtag after the period.

For example;

Put it off all week but now I'm finally getting it done. #laundry

Often we use more than one post-hoc noun to add detail. For example

Put it off all week but now I'm finally getting it done. #laundry #laundromat

As the written word and the search for it migrates almost entirely online it's only a matter of #time before the post-hoc noun phenomenon, currently driven by Twitter usage, begins to invade every aspect of #lifeasweknowit.

I for one, will not be overwhelmed with #joy when that happens.

I'm trying to build my online business, like many, many other people in these dark times, so I spend a good amount of time on Twitter. Here's something I've noticed and I bet you have too.

There's an awful, awful lot of advice in my Twitter stream. How to set up your business how to connect with customers, how to build your website, how to brand yourself, ten must dos, seven don'ts. Twenty great tools to help you do this, that or the other.

In fact, if some magical filter erased all the how-to posts from my twitter stream it would be a pretty darned lonely place, instead of being just a very boring place.

Hell, even I've written a how-to post or two, and i don't even like them!


But all this advice got me thinking.


1. How much advice can there be? Most of it HAS to be bad, conflicting and repetitive.

2. Either the torrent of advice keeps on coming because nobody's taking it.

3. Or because it's just not that good and people keep searching for more.

4. Or because there's so much of it, it's impossible to sort through.

5. Or all of the above.

6. The best advisor you have is totally offline. It's called your gut.

7. A flood of advice can leave you unsure. Get stuck in. See what works.

8. Trial and error beats advice every time. Get stuck in. See what works.

9. If you need THAT much advice, maybe you're in the wrong business.

10.If advice on the internet IS marketing, how good can it really be?

11. If this post really had eleven tips, it would get way less traffic.

Choose. Three. Words.

And hope.

Most Tagline professors have done it. It's late, we'd rather be at the pub. Let's pump out a couple of 'three-worders' and get out of the office. But the truth is...they. don't. work.

Never have. Never will.

There are a few reasons for this.

Firstly, and most importantly, they're. a. cliche. And cliches of any kind in branding = borrowing = brand dilution.

Secondly, they're. very. lazy, which means maybe your company is lazy too in the eyes of the consumer.

Thirdly, they talk to the consumer in a robotic rather than real way. Very. Bad. Idea.

Fourthly, they're usually pompous and create distance rather than connection.

The only three worder that could, and I stress could, work is one that pokes fun at the very notion and use of the three-worder itself. Self reverential stuff like that can have a certain charm, although it's at best a short-term stopgap, rather than a long-term brand builder.

Big brands should steer clear because they should know better. Mid-sized brands should give them a wide berth because they want to be big brands, and SMBs should avoid them, because they lower rather than elevate visibility.

My advice as a Tagline machine is simple. Always. Steer. Clear

"Hottest Brand Going"

It was just a moniker on a toy car at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, but it struck me as so facile that I realized it was the gateway to a wider understanding of branding. There's so much talk about brands and how important they are - that there's an implicit understanding that each successful brand has cache because it has substance.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

So many brands are just the sum of the marketing that expresses them. There really is no there there. I live in LA so I know all about the absence of 'there'. It's no surprise that LA has spawned so many non-brands, from fashion to celebrities and movie franchises, that are essentially worthless, in every respect but one. For some inexplicable reason they attract the fashion victims, who slavishly adhere to whatever junk is being offered by this or that brand.

It can only be a desperate need for validation and belonging that drives this kind of almost religious magnetism to the empty brands. Which suggests that for all the talk of brand value, sometimes, indeed often, a brand thrives, on that rarified air of just being perceived, usually by the unwashed, as cool.

Calling all small businesses. It's not often that you come across a new local listing service that actually looks like it might work. But Thumbtack.com got in touch with me via a Craigslist posting (which up to that moment had just delivered only the finest spam) and I checked it out. Definitely worth a look if you're looking for a Yelp alternative.

Check out my listing here.

Get A Catchy Slogan for your Small Business!

Catchy Slogans for your Small Business

In a frenzy of self-serving blog-posting, The Tagline Machine and its Chief Mechanic, Simon Gornick are proud to announce, in our own little way, not one but two guest posts on two pretty fabtastic blogs.

Number one is a series of two on the what why and how of taglines.

Number two is a post on the ROI of Social Media which is sort of related a bit.

Hope you enjoy them, and if you do retweet, share and report glowingly on them to all your influential friends.

You walk into Target. Stroll around. Look down at your list. "Advil". Turns out you're near the right aisle. Then comes the moment of truth. Do you choose "Advil" or target brand. You know they're identical, but you still choose Advil and pay double for the 100 caps.

That is brand value.

How much did it cost Advil to get you to choose its name brand over the generic? The answer is billions of dollars, a whole lot of marketing expertise, millions of customers and plenty of time.

That is what brand value costs.

And if 'brand value' is the ROI of branding, and ROI is the reason we all get up in the morning, then is it possible to brand a small business?

The answer is - you've guessed it, no and yes.

No, because the language of branding is the language of big brands.

Smaller brands simply can't afford to pay for the reach that big brands need to enter the brand value dialog.

Yes, because for small brands - brand value is defined by expression of their personalities.

In simple terms, smaller brands generate their value from their magnetism. The brand value can't be measured in pure ROI terms because there's no generic reference point. But if people find a smaller brand attractive then its brand value is that "personality".

Where does that personality come from?

Design, strong copywriting, quality advertising, good customer relationships, the right demographic positioning, and most importantly a product that delivers real (rather than perceived) value.

In short, creating brand value for smaller businesses is completely different to branding for large companies.

Small business branding is about the fundamentals of your business rather than perception. The bigger the brand and its reach, the more important the role of mystique.

Attempting to capture big brand mystique when you're still at the little guy stage is putting the cart way, way, way before the horse.

For small businesses branding is about getting the foundation right. If you build all that (and it ain't easy) maybe they'll come. And if they do, you might be lucky enough to be the name brand at Target that people choose because they don't trust the generic.

The word "Brand" actually has two different meanings. One is for the big guys, the other is for the little guys.

But I think we've tended to conflate the two, to the detriment of small business branding. Perhaps we need to add the prefix - mini - for small business branding, because it really is very different.

And more important. The top 100 global brands make all the noise, but ironically, in a world where small business drives most of the economy - it's the little guy branding that really counts.

When I started exploring the implications of this post it led me to an interesting thesis.

The smaller and newer your brand, the more likely a longer tagline will deliver an effective marketing message.

There's been some research into the power of the longer slogan, it's ability to hold, captivate and explain over the more fashionable short and punchy tags that are predominating these days among bigger brands.

The bottom line is that shorter taglines carry greater risks of inspiring a consumer to do nothing at all in response. Nothing is bad enough, but the idea that a potential customer might go "uhh?" when he sees your tagline should send shivers down the spine of the branding team on the job.

The good news for us tagline specialists is that we get higher efficacy and emotional potential with more words - and - also a ton more options too. Longer taglines tend to be more on the nose, which in these literalist times might not necessarily be a bad thing. They offer more word play avenues, more opportunity for a call to action and positive reinforcement. In short, they might even make our lives a little easier.

There's nothing new about catchy slogans and taglines.

They are the modern equivalent of the mottos that ran underneath the family coat of arms. Both perform similar functions. They're signage, identification, calls to bravery and fortitude.

Mottos were in just about every respect medieval branding, and in many respects the process really hasn't changed that much. It's still a powerful and immediate signifier, a statement that defines and differentiates.

Historically, one of the key elements of chivalry was a graphic expression of the deep competitiveness of medieval aristocracy, jockeying for favor in the court and on the battlefield, as well as asserting authority over underlings and vassals. Again, the similarities to the modern principles of branding are striking.

If you examine this template of a classic coat of arms layout, the motto is an important part of the framework - and of course the shield, supporters, wreath were crest themselves the centuries old equivalent of a logo.

In fact, the entire construct supports the core power message.

Some things just never change.

It's really, really hard to 'like' the word like.

Who knew it was going to be the defining word of the last few months?

But as awfully milquetoast as it is, it's hard to find an alternative that would work.

"Dig it"

Might have worked in a retro kind of way had it not been for Digg.

"Love It"

Will get you in trouble with Big Mac, and is also a tad strong (which is bad if you're a company like FB trying to get page views that'll earn it cash)

"Support"

Feels lofty and also somewhat formal, as well as rather narrow in its intent.

"Believe in it"

Usually reserved for deities. Doesn't ring true when you're talking about a candy bar or a hip new hair gel.

"Rate it"

Not bad, but without the little stars that usually go with it, people might get the wrong idea.

"It Rocks"

Not bad but might put off the oldies on Facebook, although people say it all the time without meaning it which works in its favor.

"Awesome"

Too cheerleader.

"Thumbs up icon"

Been there. Done that.

"It's the shit"

My personal favorite but sadly not possible.

Internet "content" is one of those terms that's maddeningly imprecise. A Shakespeare sonnet is cheapened to the point of absurdity by being termed 'content', as much as a 'get rich quick' crap can glorify in the term.

The reason may be that use of the term is deliberately vague. In other words, anything goes, the only validation required being that someone, somewhere in cyberspace pay attention to it out.

Of course setting the bar so low, and with so little reference to the intent of the text or its structure means that a significant percentage of content on the internet is dedicated to helping you create quality content (which can be translated as content that attracts many people).

Content is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In a world of surfing, where are attention is drawn less by agenda, and appointment and more through browsing (on a browser) or surfing (also on a browser) content doesn't really have to be anything more than a trigger to a pause in the browsing or surfing.

This is not something to get excited about. The craft of writing has given way to SEO formulas, where one's choice of words is decided by an algorithm rather than living, breathing people.

If the semantic web ever comes to pass, we may return to a world where content is more than just 'stuff'. But in the meantime, someone needs to write the top ten ways of creating a great Shakespearean sonnet.

Only if you're a highly recognized brand.

If you're a little guy (and let's face it most of us are), going with a cut-down tagline is probably a bad idea. The reasons are pretty simple. The less words it has the less it needs to explain. And only big brands which are already common currency have the luxury of 'knowing' that consumers already get them. Simply put, they can afford to run with a tagline that relies for its impact on simplicity. Indeed too many words would probably clutter up an already finely honed message. The opposite is true of smaller brands. They need explaining. And explaining means more words.

The moral of the story is this; if you're a brand, sometimes it's a great idea to think big, and sometimes - like when it comes to your slogan - it pays to think, well. realistically.

If you think about it - and let's face it, who has time these days to do anything quite so luxurious as to think - taglines are a great fit for today's absurdly accelerated pace. It's a cliche to say we're all bombarded with stimuli from all sides. We know that. But what we haven't really figured out is how to deal with that. How do marketers and entrepreneurs get their messages across when they only have a few seconds to do it - before the potential customer has moved on to the next bright shiny thing to move through his or her transom.

Taglines aren't the answer to everything, but they provide a clue about a way to solve the information overload conundrum. Not just because they're short - but because the good ones are meaningful. They pack more power into a single phrase than just about any other text that flies across a screen. They can attract the eye, and engage the mind faster in a more focused way than most of the other word-stream that bombards us too. Which means we need to get them right.

That's not to say that a bad line is particularly devastating. I really don't think that it is. Unless it makes a profound error, semantically, syntatically, or factually, most average lines don't enhance a brand or undermine it. But a good line can do so much to build a brand - especially one that's having a tough time competing for airtime in the crowded media space that we call the world.

Not wanting to blow The Tagline Machine's trumpet (now there's a mixed metaphor if ever I saw one), businesses and marketers need to think long and hard about a good slogan if they have a logo - which most businesses do these days.

And there's one more thing. Not only does a catchy slogan have musicality, but it also has something else - it's a visual cue, especially if it's a one or two or three word line. More anon.

Yes, that moment is finally here, echoing in the vast firmament that is the web. The Tagline Machine is ready for primetime, as we like to say in LA (which just happens to be the home of primetime).

After much rending of hair and all that jazz, and with the help of some awesome notes I've managed to do what everyone should do on the web - boil it all down to the basics. Yesterday, a good friend in London said, "Aren't you missing a little, you know, design?" I told him that these days, it's the absence of design that delivers the impact. There's way too much design cluttering everything up. Why add to it?

Having said that, of course, if enough people echo my friend's note, I may have to eat my words, but my gut tells me that's unlikely. If you get a look at the site, get in touch with your comments. The Tagline Machine is all ears.

Mother Theresa understood the internet better than anyone. Okay, she was only a so-so coder, but she knew that if you don't offer your services to everybody for free at least a little, you're not going to make it. With that in mind, TM is announcing its launch offer.

Until the end of September 2010, users can get a tagline choice absolutely free (the absolutely is redundant but adds impact) when you fill out the "Quick Submit" form on our home page.

TM management thought long and hard about offering services for free, and decided that the masochism could be worth it, because let's face it, TM is only a few days old, so the track record is pretty thin.

So head on over to the landing page, land a while, and fill out your Quick Submit. Around five business days later a few words will be winging your way, and maybe, just maybe they'll help to give your brand a little extra something.

It's been a pretty fascinating first week in action here at TM world HQ.

Lots of thinking, tweaking, and a little guessing too. Plenty of help from friends and associates, and the beginnings of a groundswell of enthusiasm for what TM is all about.

The big news is the possible introduction of a 'freemium' model to jump start a dialogue between the machine and its customers. TM is still working on the details but if it happens, and it's a pretty persuasive angle, so it's likely, TM watchers (right now they're probably precious few of those, but we can only hope) should see some a new approach take shape pretty soon.

At this point we're just quietly brilliant like the quietly brilliant tagline "quietly brilliant" that HTC is using to position itself in the wireless market. Now that's a great line.

If you don't get it in four seconds, you don't get it.

It's a four second world. Things move so fast these days that any idea only has four seconds to sink in before you move on to the next. Okay, so it's not scientifically proven, but it's probably real close. Simply put, with all the distractions around us every moment, our ability to connect and hold an idea means it has to be short, sweet and pretty darned clever too.

Taglines and slogans are at the forefront (pardon the pun) of "four second" philosophy. It probably takes about one second to read a tagline, leaving about three or so for the "I get it". That ain't much time especially for a new brand with no track record or recognition power. But in order for it to do its job, the brain has to move from "I get it" to "I like it!". That's where the Tagline Machine comes in.

Think about the four second rule when you're considering taglines for your brand, business or product. Come up wiht some, and try them out on your friends. Watch them closely. Is the light going on? Are they smiling? Or are looking clueless. Taglines are wonderfully human. You can tell if they work really really fast.

It might seem self-serving of me to say this, but in my humble opinion, the slogan has really played a big part in redefining America. In the old days, taglines were the preserve of Madison Avenue. But now, as in every part of our existence, there's been an intense democratization of tagline creation. These days, everyone's doing it, for themselves, their startups, their new products. You name it. Slogan spread is a positive sign of the fragmentation of capitalism and the rise of the entrepreneur.

But one element of the tagline equation hasn't changed. They still have to be good. In fact, in an ironic twist, they may have to be better, because the noise level in any marketplace is that much higher. Competitive branding has become a watchword of marketing. How does one differentiate oneself in a four-second world? Catchy slogans or taglines can really help jump off the customer dialogue and sit in the conciousness cloud ready to move from one watercooler to the next.

Over the next few months, The Tagline Machine will add it's two cents on the subject. Watch for more.

Does the Internet really need more words?

I mean, hasn't it got enough. Well, sadly, most of those words aren't so hot. I mean, let's face it, we're living in a world where the new scourge of the net is the "content farm", made up of linguistic battery hens. So keep an eye on this blog to learn more about the fine art of the Tagline, and to get a few insights into just how words shape the way we buy, the way we learn, the way we think.

One of the reasons the tagline or slogan is so important in branding, politics and any area where differentiation is key, is that in the world we live in - with time and attention always at a premium, four words almost always work way better than forty. And sometimes that number can be reduced to three or two, or even one. Just think about the news stories we hear every day. How often are a handful of words the centerpiece of any of them. An awful lot.